Limbo is More than a Dance
by Random Guise
Summary: A short continuation of the 1979 movie "The Black Hole". Dan, Charlie, Kate and VINCENT sail off in the probe ship from the Cygnus and the credits role. Where did they go? I don't own the characters from the movie and only a black hole could explain how my money disappears so quickly.


**A/N: A short continuance from the 1979 movie "The Black Hole".**

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Limbo is More than a Dance

The probe ship from the Cygnus decelerated from its tremendous speed as it put distance between itself and...whatever you called the other side of a black hole.

"The controls still aren't responding" Captain Dan Holland stated as he fiddled with them after his mind started to regain its processes. "They may have been locked due to programming as we approached the black hole, but it never intended for us to go past the event horizon. At that point the computer must have thrown up its digital hands and just froze out any inputs."

"Obviously inferior programming" the robot VINCENT proclaimed. "Dr. Hans Reinhardt may have been a physics genius, but he had no contingencies for anything outside his theories. Unless he put in a subroutine for this very eventuality, that is; but since he only built one probe I doubt his egocentricities allowed for any other possibilities. As Stojanovic said, 'Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility.' And there is no greater Sun than a black hole."

The others were recovering from the passage as well. "The only thing I know is that he couldn't possibly have made it through alive" Dr. Kate McCrae said. "Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I had a vision of him in Hell. I saw his eyes showing from inside that monstrosity Maximilian."

"I saw that too!" First Officer Charlie Pizer added. "It was horrible; he was standing watch over all those lost souls down below near the flames." He shuddered at the thought.

"Did you see that vision ahead of us going down that crystal hallway? Was that an angel? Did you see it VINCENT?"

"As we were descending into the gravity well of the black hole I monitored the Cygnus breaking up behind us. I saw nothing. The time dilation caused my audio circuits to jumble while our rotation and speed caused a tunnel effect with only a Doppler-shifted light behind and ahead of us. There was something I thought I saw for a moment, but I'm sure it was just a peculiar pattern of interference so I would discount that. 'Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear' as they say."

"Show me" Kate asked, linking her ESP talent to VINCENT's processor. She relived a few seconds of their travel, and in the distance she glimpsed a shadowy figure leading them on. "I thought I saw an angel, but VINCENT saw...saw...BOB!" BOB was an earlier model droid of the same make as VINCENT, and was a great help in finding out the true evil of Dr. Reinhardt."

"Dr. McCrae, I do believe you're right" VINCENT acknowledged. "I hesitated because of how foolish it sounded, but that is exactly the same conclusion I reached. Not that it was BOB, but an image that _resembled_ him."

"Hell? Heaven? Are we even alive?" Dan asked. It was a valid question; no one had ever reported traveling through a black hole before.

Kate took Dan's hand in both of hers as she stared into his eyes. "Do I seem dead to you?" she asked, her eyes implying a penalty if the answer was wrong.

"Not from where I sit" he noted. "I feel more alive than ever."

"If you want to stay that way let's hope he programmed something about that planet we're flying toward" Charlie observed. Ahead lay what appeared to be a planet eclipsing the star behind it.

"Orders?" VINCENT asked.

"Try to find an emergency override; I'd like to swing around the planet on the port side, near the equator if we can" Dan decided. "Give us plenty of room in case there's someone there."

A few minutes later the ship rotated and corrected its course to that suggested by Dan. "Good going VINCENT" he commended.

"It wasn't me Captain; the ship changed course on its own. It would seem we're along for the ride." The ship continued around the planet to the daylight side, where it maneuvered itself into a vertical position and began braking procedures.

"Hang on" Charlie yelled over the sound of the main rocket firing. "It looks like we're going to visit whether we want to or not, unless there was a secret vote you didn't tell me about." The ship shook slightly as it braked hard twice before the ride smoothed out as the blasts became shorter and less frequent. Finally, with only a slight jolt the ship settled on the ground.

"VINCENT, what do the sensors say we have outside?" Kate asked.

"I'm not sure. We have landed on a planet; the ground seems to be stable and level. I don't have any information on the atmosphere available to me; I don't even know if the ship has the ability to detect what is outside."

"I don't suppose there are any suits in here" Dan stated, looking around. The ship's cabin seemed to be the only compartment available; it was tiny and obviously not designed to carry a crew for long, unlike the Palomino they had flown in to discover the Cygnus. "What if we can't breathe what's out there? VINCENT, any luck on the controls?"

"Negative, Captain. I..." he started before the hatch opened to the outside "...didn't do that. It would seem our discussion on the atmosphere is moot." He levitated over to the hatch and peeked outside. "No welcoming party" he reported when he ducked back in again.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a bathroom" Charlie said as he unbuckled.

"Do you really?" Kate asked.

"Of course I do...well, I thought I did...maybe I don't, it's probably just habit."

"I thought so. Think about it - when was the last time you had anything to eat or drink? When was the last time you even breathed? We were exposed to space during that meteor shower, but we weren't affected. Maybe we are dead!" she postulated.

Dan pinched himself. "Ouch! I sure felt that! I don't need to eat or drink or even breathe, but I can feel pain? It doesn't make any sense."

"If no answers can be found in here, perhaps they can be found outside" VINCENT suggested.

"Why not?" Dan shrugged. "Charlie, you stay..."

"...oh no I'm not" Charlie interrupted. "Stay behind in a ship I can't control? What's the point? I don't even have a suitcase to leave behind for someone to steal. I'm going with everyone else!"

"Okay, it's all-for-one I guess" Dan said. "Last one out has to put the money in the parking meter." The remaining members unbuckled and all made their way out onto the surface of the planet. The sky was something of a yellow color, with one sun overhead and the ground a hard-packed soil of some sort. The only feature around them was a flat horizon with a small, square building nearby. In the distance many more buildings could be seen, tiny dots on the horizon. They walked up to the nearby building and just before they reached what appeared to be a door, the panel slid aside to allow entrance. Not having much of a choice, they entered.

Inside they found a plain room with a smaller room in the center, its doors open. "Elevator?" Kate asked as she looked inside. "Two buttons only - the top one is lit."

"Our path is clear" VINCENT said.

"I agree" Dan said as he entered the elevator. Nothing happened, so the rest joined him to wait inside. After a brief pause a single tone sounded and the doors closed; with a slight sensation of descending the elevator dropped. The descent was arrested and the doors opened up to reveal a large waiting room, with a variety of people seated in a random pattern throughout the room. For such a large room it seemed to be relatively quiet, devoid of a great deal of conversation as one would expect from a group of people that large. As they stepped out, a dispenser beeped and spit out a ticket; with a quizzical look Kate took the ticket and showed it to the group - on it was printed the number 24331.

Charlie looked at the ticket, and scanned the room until he found a display with '24330' written on it. "We shouldn't have to wait long, whatever it is" he surmised. "If I'm going to wait I might as well sit."

He just started to sit into a chair when a woman appeared out of a doorway along one wall as the display changed to 24331. "Number 24331 - number 24331, party of four?" Kate waved the ticket silently to catch the woman's eye as her view swept the room. Nodding, she motioned the group to follow her.

"Might as well see if we can get some answers" Dan said as he led the group toward the woman.

"Follow me please" she said as she led them down a hallway and into a small interview room. She stood in front of the four chairs while they seated themselves, with the exception of VINCENT who just floated. The door behind them closed automatically. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions; most people do. I'll try to answer them the best we can. Captain Holland, are you the spokesperson for this group?"

Dan gave a small start; it was eerie to have people in a strange place know who you were. "I suppose I am, of sorts."

"Good. It's a much faster process when only one person at a time is asking questions. My name is Samantha; please ask away."

"Okay, first things first: are we dead or alive?"

"Well, technically I have to answer that question 'no' which will probably raise even more questions. Let's put it this way; when your characters ended their film it wasn't really established whether you were dead OR alive. So you're really not classified yet; think of it as 'pending' if you like."

"Characters? Film?"

"Of course, I'm sorry. Everything you just went through was a movie; you were characters in a story that was filmed and shown to audiences. Doctor McCrae, you said some time ago that you felt like eyes were watching you; well, they were."

Dan nodded so Kate could take the floor. "We are..._were_...fictional?"

"You still are; everyone you've met in the last week has been."

"So no one died and no one lived; it was all just made up."

Samantha shook her head. "In your world, it was all real. Doctor Durant and Harry Booth are as dead to you as an audience member would be to another in their world."

"When we were passing through the black hole I thought I saw..."

"Doctor Hans Reinhardt? He most definitely is dead too."

"But we're not?" Dan followed up.

"Not definitely. Your characters are pending. They didn't die definitely..."

"...that's a relief" Charlie quipped.

"...but it was left open what happened" Samantha concluded. "You're here until the situation changes."

"How does it change? What do we have to do?" Charlie asked, looking for something he could do. Being classified as 'pending' wasn't sitting well with him.

"Nothing, I'm afraid, except wait."

"I hate waiting."

"There's no much else for you to do. It's all up to the writers now. They will determine if you're dead or alive."

"Let me see if I understand" Kate asked. "Although we feel real to ourselves, we're actually fictional. Some person or persons have created the events that we just went through. Some characters were written as having died previously, like my father. Others died recently, like Dr. Durant when Maximilian killed him. I knew Alex; he was real. And the only reason we haven't ended up like them is because some writer didn't decide what happened to us?"

"Please Dr. McCrae, I'm not saying you aren't real; I'm very real to you and you're very real to me. But sometimes the fates of characters are left...open. Either to let the audience decide what they would most like, or possibly to create ambiguity to create a situation that is ripe for sequels. Other times characters just vanish with no explanation."

"And what about me?" VINCENT asked. "I'm a robot, so technically I'm not alive to begin with."

"No, but you're a sentient character. Maximilian died, and he was a robot. In your case particularly, you might not come back due..." Samantha paused "...I'm sorry, this is a little embarrassing to explain...lackluster merchandise sales."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Charlie asked, confused.

"What it means, Mr. Pizer, is that I'm gone if they don't sell enough of my toys. Am I right Samantha?"

"Yes, VINCENT."

"How long do we have to wait?" Dan asked.

"Our standard policy is twenty-five years before we reevaluate your case. By that time if they haven't written a sequel or rebooted the whole idea the odds are very small that you'll ever have further adventures."

"You mean" Kate said slowly "that all those people out there in the big room are waiting to see if they live or not?" She tried to reach out with her ESP and let out a sharp breath when she had to withdraw. "It's terrible. I came into contact with someone named Chuck Cunningham; the poor man."

"Chuck's been waiting a long time" Samantha agreed. "He would have been gone years ago but people still talk about him even if they don't actually put him _in_ anything. All it takes is one piece of fanfiction and he's alive again. Then there's reboots, canon violations, alternate universes..."

"That settles it" Dan grumbled. "We're in hell."

"Please don't say that," Samantha chastised "not even as a joke. You're pending, so you still have a chance. Keep that idea in your head and the time will seem much shorter. You could end up here again after another adventure."

"Oh, then we're on a hell loop" Charlie sneered. "And I thought waiting was bad..."

"Now, if you'd go wait in the main room please. I've got two men who robbed a bank in Bolivia who are trying to figure out what happened to them. If you would like, you can set up another appointment with a staffer to ask additional questions." Numbed, the group stood and filed out of the interview room to join the larger crowd outside. Even VINCENT was silent as they sat and contemplated what or wasn't in store for them.

The End

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**A/N: Just what did the ending of "The Black Hole" mean? Who knows? I doubt the writers had this idea in mind. Oh wait, just the fact that someone has written a fanfic has reset their clock. *phew***


End file.
